Thursday, September 19, 2013

Hey everyone! It's now heading into one of my favorite makeup seasons of the year... Fall. What that means is that all of the makeup companies are prepping for the holidays and kicking out some really jaw-droppingly good products.

You may remember that last year Urban Decay came out with the beautiful Vice palette so I was seriously excited to find out it had a sequel. I guess the trend is to go all cinematic on us and have palette babies when the first one does well. I don't even mind though because if the sequel lives up to its original, then please, come close to my bosom (or eyelids?) you sexy palette you. Ugh, I can't even handle how goosebump-worthy this one is. Welcome the Vice 2 Palette!

Urban Decay Vice 2 contains 20 all-new gorgeous, vibrant shades of eyeshadow in a purple watercolor-marbled clamshell case. Like Vice from last year, this also has the crystallized UD logo on the front and the large, full-sized mirror on the inside. It also includes a dual-sided synthetic brush.

When I first opened the palette, I wasn't thinking I'd be terribly impressed since I've come across so many palettes with so many colors. BOY was I wrong. As soon as I started swatching, I knew this palette was straight-up ridiculous. These are smooth and rich in texture with several duochromes, metallics, mattes, and jewel tones in unique shades. YES, UNIQUE. What?!

Just stop. The overview swatches don't even do this justice.

Okay, this is a bit better. MAYBE TOO GOOD. So good I'm adding my own category names to each row. It's sexy swatch close-up time!

Row 1 (The Date): Smokeout / Lovesick / Shellshock / Coax / X-Rated

Row 2 (The Coast): Prank / Madness / Strike / Stash / Poison

Row 3 (The Jewels): Radar / Damaged / Voodoo / Betrayal / Derailed

Row 4 (The Neutrals): Dope / Toxic / Habit / Ambush / Rewind

Okay, can everyone breathe again? Yes? Good.

Lets start with the very small bad. Lovesick (2nd on the top row) is a black matte with silver microglitter and it swatched really poorly. I even tried swatching it 3 times and it was extremely dry and patchy. That's not to say it's not useable on the eyes since matte black always comes in handy but compared to the butteriness of the rest of the shadows, including other mattes, it just had a very different texture compared to what I'm used to seeing from UD. Not kidding, that's the only negative I have to say about this palette.

Everything else blew me out of the water. Here are a few of my favorites:

Row 1:Shellshock (silver) - Like molten platinum at the slightest touch.Smokeout (dark chocolate satin) and Coax (metallic pink) are also stars in this row.

Row 2:Prank (blackened blue with teal flecks) - Basically a peacock in a shadow. I've never seen anything like it before.

Row 3:Everything in Row 3 - Wow, wow, wow, the jewel tones are so bright. The green is the perfect forest green, the middle purple is a crystallized blurple (blue-purple), Betrayal is such an amazing duochrome. Both neutrals are outstanding and pigmented.

Row 4:Ambush (metallic bronze) - Rich metallic with reddened edges. Such dimension in a single shadow!The Mattes (Habit and Rewind) - Really buttery and easy to apply. Habit will be a great blending color for perfectly smooth shadow transitions.

The hardest part about reviewing this palette is that I want to keep going back and talking about more and more shadows individually (but I know this blog post would be a TLDR)! I am completely obsessed. You guys, this IS limited edition and it WILL sell out. Fair warning, right?

44 comments:

This palette looks absolutely amazing! I don't use eyeshades that much on a regular basis, but I would definitely get this. It just looks so awesome with those colours... and the packaging! Love the neutrals the most, and "Ambush" is my favourite!

I ordered this for a friend and ordered Anarchy for myself, both which will arrive this weekend. I wasn't planning on getting Vice 2 BUT after seeing your swatches, I'm going to have to reconsider. Thanks for the beautiful swatches!

I'm always scared of putting actual colors on my eyes, but this palette may just have encouraged me to suck it up and do it. Prank and Damaged are just so PRETTY. Aaaand there are enough neutrals in it to keep me satisfied.

.... So of course I impulse bought it as soon as I finished reading...

Hi Jen! This sounds quite out of place but could you please please please do a complete tutorial on skincare and makeup routine for long hour flights??? I'm flying from a southeast Asian country to Japan in a month. I saw tons of other tutorials on YouTube but I wanted to get some tips from you.. Thanks a million!! ^_^

Not sure if I'll get to record a vid before your flight, but take some of your richest skincare in travel tubes for your flight! If possible, I recommend no foundation until the last hour before you land. Feed your skin lots of hydration (fabric face masks, moisturizing mists) and make sure you are drinking lots of water. Have fun in Japan!

I would say that's exactly the case. This palette has colors that are bright and varied, but they are wearable colors that you can integrate into everyday looks easily. Personally, I'm more inspired to create new looks when I know it won't be too foreign to integrate a bright that is skin-flattering. Compared to Vice and 15th Anniversary, this has a better formula and is more "well-rounded" as a palette for a complete neutral eye as well as saturated colors. Vice 2 is my favorite of the three, which I definitely didn't expect!

Awesome! Thanks for the response! :) I take my Naked palette everywhere because it is "safe," but I would love a palette that has some colors as well. Speaking of which, you should totally do a video for a wearable colored look (e.g. date night friendly) with this palette.... :P

OMG! I totally underestimated Shellshock when I saw it at first in your palette...but when I saw the swatch...oh my gosh, I died. It's so beautiful xx I also love Prank, Madness, Stash, Damaged, Voodoo and Ambush.

OMG! I totally underestimated Shellshock when I saw it at first in your palette...but when I saw the swatch...oh my gosh, I died. It's so beautiful xx I also love Prank, Madness, Stash, Damaged, Voodoo and Ambush.

Hey Jen, I'm looking for a sexy deep red matte lipstick. Could you recommand some? And also, I love sigma brushes but they're a bit too pricey for me. I'm not a pro and I want some brushes which got a wide variety of choices. Hope you could help me find the right items!

I ordered this today. I am upset with myself for not ordering it when it first came out! If I had, I would have it by now! ;-) oh, well... I know my patience will be well rewarded after reading this AWESOME blog post! Thank you oh so much for the beautiful swatches!!! I can't wait for Damaged and Toxic first, but Oh! Betrayal! Honestly, I cannot wait for each and every one of these colors!!! I am SUPER excited! :-D

Ugh, lovely swatches Jen, they make me regret getting the 15th Anniversary Palette, and I'm really wishing I would've waited and got this instead. lol Oh well. I love the color range and the versatility Vice 2 has to offer, I'm also digging that it is totally more wearable than the 15th Palette. <33

This palette is gorgeous! I'm just getting into makeup despite being 21. I've perfected all my basis and was just about to purchase the Lorac Pro Palette as my first ever eyeshadow palette. It seems so wearable and perfect for every occasion. And then I saw the Vice 2 palette. I can only afford one palette and I'm torn between the two. Which one do you recommend? I would be so happy to have your opinion! Thanks, Jen! :)

Isn't this palette AWESOME!?! I adore it. Totally worth every penny. They've kept it around alot longer than I figured they would; it seems like they just now took it off the site. But who knows, it may be back in a few weeks, that's happened before, where its gone & then back. I got mine for my birthday back in Dec.,& I really love it! I have quite a few palettes, & I'd have to say that I consider the Vice2 to be among one of the most versatile. It has plenty in it for darker smokier looks, edgy looks, colorful looks, neutral daytime/office appropriate looks, & more sexy evening appropriate neutral looks. And the brush that comes with it is great-usually I hate the brushes that come with a palette,but UD gives nice, full sized good quality ones. In my personal opinion, I think that UD needs to not only bring back the first Vice, but also offer the Vice line as part of their permanent collection, like they do with the Nakeds. They'd most definitely sell, plus some complain that UD has gotten too neutral in recent years,& is focusing too much on the Naked series, so I think that offering the Vice series as part of the permanent collection would satisfy the customers that want the more colorful/edgy stuff.